With the help of the Services Employee International Union (SEIU), the workers are asking for the support of faculty and staff and for the university''s president to intervene, the article stated.

"We are here to demand that Bee-Clean stop attacking workers exercising our rights under the law," said Tarik Accord, a Somali woman who said she was fired from her job last week for talking about the union.

"We are respectfully requesting the president of the University of Alberta to meet with us and talk about our concern," Accord added.

Janitor Danilo de Leon said Bee-Clean managers have threatened to send temporary foreign workers who are from the Philippines back home if they try to join a union.

According to the article, the union, which is not yet certified to represent the janitors, says it has filed an unfair labor-practice complaint with the Alberta Labor Relations Board and has filed lawsuits on the workers'' behalf to recover unpaid wages.